Reassurance
by Arget Cross
Summary: "I am literally writing 'oh shit I'm lusting after my dead wife fic' and ENJOYING IT But also disguised as 'oh masturbation is a-ok and it's going to be alright' fic? ? ?" Or Lon'qu hasn't touched himself in four years and he might have some issues to work out.


Lon'qu jerks awake with the lingering warmth already turning to icy shame in his stomach. He does not move, stiff and still in the cot, as he listens to his own breathing settle. He takes heed of the room and runs through the normal reassurances: there are no enemies at his door, his son is safe, Ke'ri has been dead for twenty years, Haura had crumbled to dust and promised to return four years ago, and he has a sword within arm's reach. When he is satisfied that he only has his cursed dream to blame for the alarm, he exhales and sit up in bed.

His arousal stands up as well, mocking him.

For the first time in four years, he wants. Not in the way that makes his chest aches, his voice call out into the dark, or his hand clasp at his sword, looking for another but settling for steel instead. No, he burns down there to the tips of his toes, a libido long suppressed and forgotten surging through his tense bones.

He should have known the nostalgia of the Ylissean barracks was dangerous. Chrom had offered him a full suite in the Ylissean palace, partially for diplomacy reasons and partially for old time's sakes. But Lon'qu had paused and stared out to the military barracks next to the training arena. New and old Shepherds alike had been sparring under Frederick's eyes. From here, he had been able to see into Morgan's office. The way his son's hand had dug into his thick Chon'sin hair as he pondered a problem had brought a faint smile to Lon'qu's face.

"If there is room in the barracks, I can sleep there."

It had been a mistake, an attempt to relive the past. The images do not die in his mind even as he throws the blankets off and subjects himself to the morning Ylissean winter chill.

Some are memories, filled with heavy warmth and the sensation of her callused hands capturing and engulfing him on the long campaign road. He knows after so many years that he cannot dwell forever on the past, but at the same time, he is its only guardian. Who else will remember the way she looked as she shuddered in the candlelight, scarred skin shining with sweat, and the low, guttural groans as she moved against his mouth?

He makes the safekeeping of those memories his duty and he had always been good at following orders, even his own. (Except when it came to dealing with women, but that was something he could not conquer alone. Maribelle had told him time and time again, sometimes beating it into his skull with her parasol.) He wraps the memories in oilcloth and binds them with red twine, keeping them for lonely nights. After the first year, which had been filled with his gluttony for misery, he handles them carefully so not to wear them out with his gaze. The ones where she had pressed bare and hot against him are just as precious as when she had held their foreheads together and spoken so fast that he had not kept up with her firework thoughts.

Lon'qu leans his head back against the wall. He remembers how she could fire off a Thoron at thirty paces to rip through a whole enemy line even as she trusted him to keep the axe off her skull, just two paces away. How they once made love in an enemy fort, as soon as they heard the heralds call their overwhelming victory. How he had pressed her up against the stone wall and how she had reached down to pull at both their trousers. How they had kept their bloodstained hands away from bare skin even as they fucked hard and rough, shooting past their first climaxes without either of them slowing down, gasping and burning with relief that they had survived.

The strength of the memory curls his toes and he lets out a low groan, knocking the back of his head against the wall. Then, before his hands can move, he jumps to his feet, breathing hard. That was not what he wanted to think about and the want returns, twice fold, curling low in his abdomen. He awkwardly paces the room, trying to work off his pounding heart and his uncomfortable erection. If the room was a tad bigger, he would try to throw himself into sword forms, as a way to rein himself back to sanity. Instead, the more tight circles he weaves, the more his mind returns him to the heat of his dreams. In the waking world, he realizes, with a bit of trepidation, that some of the images had not been memories but pure imagination.

The only fantasy he had ever allowed himself was that of her return. He would greet her tired eyes and her broad smile with tears and all the words he had failed to give her and once again, he would feel her in his arms. But as each year passes, he locks the scene deeper within him, because he needs to lean on more than that shining moment to live.

(The way Morgan reassures Lon'qu with his very existence is one of the only reasons he has not given up hope. The way his son takes up his mother's coat and mantle, one of the heaviest burdens of them all, brings Lon'qu more pride than he knows how to express.)

However, what his dreaming mind conjures is no dramatic, wind-swept reunion, but something almost tantalizing mundane. They stand in the Feroxi snow. She wears civilian clothing, something he never saw even during the two years of peace, and smiles like a parent, adoringly at her child. Morgan builds a snow man and Lon'qu makes tea for both of them. She tackles both of them into a snow drift and they roll down a hill, screaming with laughter. The sun shines blindingly bright above Lon'qu's eyes before Haura blocks it by pushing herself over him, face flushed and damp hair swinging out of her hood. Then she stuffs snow down his jacket and flees, crowing.

In the night, when sound has been muffled by the thick snow around the cabin, she presses him against the wall, holds him down even as he squirms, and breathes hellfire into the shell of his ear. The firelight catches the strands of red-gold hair pooling over his shoulders and her hand pins his to the wall, with her brown skin burnishing orange. He gasps and her laughter ghosts his neck. He twists his head, cheek scraping against the wall, but she is a blur at the corner of his eye even as the pressure at his back increases.

It is madness. He slumps back down on the bed. There is something so falsely idyllic about it and yet he can still feel his whole body flush red at the idea. Lon'qu runs his hands through his hair and glares down at his tented pants. If he told Haura, she would have been taken aback, eyebrows raised and uncertain grin toothy. Then, hesitantly, for she had always started uncertain and ended strong, she would have asked if that was what he wanted. And he would reply, not forever, no, but maybe once, a day in the pure white snow, his family away from blood-

"It needn't be once."

He comes close to breaking his rules and opens his mouth to respond before stilling.

"You were always so harsh with yourself."

Lon'qu is not going to talk out loud to his dead wife's ghost, especially not over carnal matters.

"It looked fun. The snow. Why are you so sure we shouldn't give it try?"

"Because-" he chokes out loud and, in his mind, she sits in the divot of the bed next to him. It is terribly easy to imagine her leaning against him and her hands resting on the inside of his thighs. His own hands would drop to her side and he would places his mouth on the top of her head with her stray hairs brushing his cheeks. The curve of her breast, soft and small, would press against his arm and make his skin tingle.

You would be disappointed, he thinks. Clinging onto her memory, building statues inside his mind, preferring to chase shadows than stand in the sunlight, all things you despised. You never liked idolatry. Lon'qu understands why not, after seeing Emmeryn fall and Chrom nearly crumple, after seeing Lucina's blind devotion and desperation, after their own bitter fight when he found she had hidden Basilio's survival from him. The Grimleal wished her to be their god and she had rather crumpled to dust than acquiesce.

You would scowl at what they call you now, Haura, he would murmur into her hair. High Deliverer.

"But you have not turned me into another Ke'ri. You have been trying so hard."

Lon'qu murmurs an assent. He has stopped counting the days.

"I am neither the fury of your nightmares nor an object for your affections. Just an old, pleasant memory of a good love. Besides," She pulls away and the way that this imaginary Haura smiles at him makes his heart pound. He is nearly dizzy. Her fingers tap his leg, tantalizingly close to his arousal. He gives her his shaking hands and she guides his fingers to the waistband of his pants. He can imagine how warm her breath would be next to his ear as she whispers,

"I think she would have liked you celebrating her this way. Loving yourself."

He knows she is not there but his heart chokes in his throat. He eases himself out of his pants, whimpering at the ghost touches, already hard and with pre-cum welling up at the tip. Lon'qu imagines her silent approval and the retreat of her hands, sliding up his chest and onto his shoulders.

"Show me."

His first stroke, clumsy and desperate, rips through his nerves and he curls forward, gasping, at the forgotten sensation. It burns and Lon'qu tries not to come right then and there.

The dream of Haura's lips on the back of his neck soothes his oversensitive shaking. Pre-cum slicks his fingers and, to give himself time to calm his thudding heart, he reaches up to lick his fingers curiously. The taste makes him wince and she laughs knowingly behind him.

"Do you remember my fingers in your mouth in the Valmese castle? Do it like that."

He does and the memory makes his stomach clench. He no longer remembers her taste but it is easy to call back her breathy sighs and how good his mouth had felt on her as her thighs had come to grip his head and her fingers had scratched his scalp. They had all the time in the world then, with a war won, and as celebrations had roared on below, they touched each other, almost lazy and indulgent in pleasure.

He has recovered from the near overstimulation and even if the arousal curls hot and low in his stomach, he can begin again. Lon'qu's hands run down his body now, recalling the easy pace, and Haura hums behind him. He has forgotten where to grip and prod himself to draw out pleasure and pauses a little helplessly. So she helps, reaching over and borrowing his fingertips. The ghost of Haura reteaches him how to shiver at fingers drawn along his throat. How his nipples sent dull jolts of pleasure at being tweaked. How his breath caught at the slow drag of a hand down his abdomen and towards his leaking cock.

When he touches himself this time, body warm and unwound, a sigh falls from his lips. His cheeks burn because, on some level, he cannot believe he is doing this. Haura returns to his back again, grinning now like a predator, and emboldened by her gaze, he lets himself go to the pleasure. His cock twitches under his steady hand and Lon'qu even lets out a bit of an erotic moan to give his dead wife a little show.

She gives a bit of a shuddery groan back and that is not imagination, but white hot memory. The back of his neck blushes as he bends into himself. His hand pumps fast, needy and a hint of desperation, and it feels so, so good, a tight pressure rising up in his balls and making it hard to stop. He speeds up instead, with a low, rumbly groan building in the back of his throat. Sweat rolls down the inside of his knees and his blood rushes to burn his toes.

He wants to come, he practically begs himself, but still his body tenses and holds him back, wanting to keep him on this edge as long as possible. He pulls himself apart, raw and wet, gods, he is so slick, and fills the crevices back up with pleasure and heat. It is too much, overwhelming after years of nothing, his nerves turning ragged and making his strokes jerky-

Lon'qu shudders as all the pressure sheets through his body and his hips jerk off the bed. He comes with a low moan and thick cum spills out onto his hand and then onto his belly in several spurts. His entire body quivers at the exhausted high, and then Lon'qu collapses backwards onto the bed, tension gone. Mindlessly, he strokes his softening cock, a kind of goodnight kiss, and wipes the cum off himself before tucking himself back in. Breathing hard, he can barely move, but Lon'qu has no qualms about it, letting him bathe in the comfortable tingle of the afterglow.

After a little while, he sits up and properly cleans himself. He remembers how they would sometimes take turns cleaning each other, Lon'qu serious about wiping his seed off her thighs, Haura mostly serious and occasionally licking up her fluids on his fingers instead. The memory gives him a low laugh, even now. Once satisfied, Lon'qu lays back down in bed, still languid and soft. Haura sits at the edge of the bed and looks down at him. She has those fond eyes whose memory still makes his heart stutter at times. When his eyelashes flutter, she disappears. Lon'qu brings his fingers to his lips, the smell of his release heavy on his skin, and runs through his normal reassurances again as his eyes droop.

There are no enemies at his door, his son is safe, Ke'ri has been dead for twenty years, Haura had crumbled to dust and promised to return four years ago, he has a sword within arm's reach, and-

He is loved.


End file.
